Five Questions
by sodakey
Summary: “Sam was quiet and contemplative, but every time Jess looked at him, he smiled — easy and innocent, like she hadn’t caught him thinking anything.” It’s Jessica’s birthday. She’s thinking about family and friends and the things Sam never says.


Another random snippet from the hidden depths of my computer, circa 2006.

Story notes: Since Jess's birthday is Dean's birthday too…

Pre-series. Stanford Era. One-shot. Characters: Sam, Jess, Dean, John, Mary, vaguely referenced background cannon characters and a few very vaguely referenced background OC's.

"_Sam was quiet and contemplative, but every time Jess looked at him, he smiled—easy and innocent, like she hadn't caught him thinking anything." It's Jessica's birthday, she's thinking about family and friends and the things Sam never says._

Not mine. Not profiting. Not trying to profit.

* * *

**Five Questions**

* * *

Jess watched.

When others joked about their families, Sam joked too. But she'd started to notice, he joked without telling anything. Holidays, traditions, birthdays. Sam always made it seem like he was saying just as much as everyone else, but when people asked for specifics, he deflected, and minimized, and allowed them to assume, and by the time they were walking away, he'd somehow made them forget that they'd never actually secured their answers.

He never talked about his family.

She wasn't even sure if he had one. As though his quiet manners, bright teeth, and sometimes darkened eyes had been born out of thin air.

People assumed a lot, and speculated, and she'd started to notice how he let them go on assuming. Never denying, but not confirming anything either, letting others tell his stories for him. She'd started to realize how many things she, herself, assumed but didn't really know. Started noticing how many things she accepted as general fact just because he'd never denied them, but…

By the time they'd officially started dating she'd become an expert at noticing the things he never said, and how good he'd become at distracting her.

By her birthday they'd been dating nearly two months, and she had still never really pushed.

Sam was busy that day with work and school, but there were white roses on her porch when she woke up. She didn't actually see him until that evening. He came straight from his expository writing class to meet them at O'byrne's. It was not quite a bar, but not quite a restaurant, not quite Irish, and not quite anything else. Wood burning stoves stood out near each table with kettles of hot chocolate settled on each, plain and spiked. The bar matrons warmed tortillas on the surfaces, on flat metal pans, handing them warm and fresh to the patrons with jars of honey. They served Irish stew and American hamburgers. It was quirky, and made Jess laugh.

The celebration itself wasn't fancy, just all of them hanging out, ambling around. Playing pool. Playing darts. Talking and giving each other a hard time. Sara and Charlie brought cake. The owner let them use plates and a knife, and brought them extra napkins without complaint after Zach smashed some of it in Sara's face.

Sam seemed quiet and contemplative, but every time Jess looked at him, he smiled, easy and innocent, like she hadn't caught him thinking anything.

He lost at pool and won at darts, talked and joked like normal. Then someone told a story about going to Tahoe every year on their birthday, and asked him, "What'd you do for birthdays growing up?"

Jess felt herself straighten as she watched.

Sam reached for a tortilla, folding it in half casually. "Well, we didn't go to Tahoe," he answered, and people laughed. "Come on, round two for darts." He shoved most of the tortilla into his mouth, pulling her out of the booth by her hand.

She went.

Halfway through the night, she received her birthday call from her grandmother. Sam ushered her back to the relative quiet of the corner table, then stayed near, keeping the others from bothering her while she talked.

By the time she got off the phone, it was just the two of them at the table, alone under the dim overhanging lamp, disturbed only by the occasional distant laugh. The walls around making her feel they were cordoned off and private.

"Is that the grandmother that says you're just like her?" Sam asked.

"Yes," she said, bouncing her eyebrows. "She says it means I have feminine wiles that I must learn to use for good instead of evil. And she calls them_ feminine wiles_. And she sounds so lascivious when she says it."

Sam laughed. He asked questions and listened while she filled him in on the rest of it—the family gossip, the well wishes, the promised presents still in the mail—nodding and smiling. And Jess watched his face and suddenly wanted to know.

She set her phone down on the table and gave him a considering look.

"What?" he said, lifting an eyebrow.

"I want something from you," she answered, folding her arms and trying to appear determined.

The corners of his lips twitched. "It's your birthday."

She hesitated, smiled, and tried not to let the extent of her curiosity show. "I want five questions."

"Five questions?"

"Yes. Five questions I get to ask you, and you have to answer, just the answer, no more, no less." It was a game she'd played with her grandmother on every holiday, on every birthday. For Sam, she thought, maybe it would be a way for him to answer questions without making him feel he had to tell her everything.

He laughed a little, and maybe she just imagined the way the muscles in his face tightened around it. "Questions about…?"

"I always talk about mine, but you _never_ talk about _your_ family."

He opened his mouth.

She unfolded her arms and leaned forward. "And I'm not asking you to tell me your life story. I'm not, like, trying to check your _pedigree_ or anything…"

"Check my _pedigree_?"

"But I just…"

"Okay," he said, breathing the word out with a forced relaxing of his shoulders and a slight chuckle. "Five questions."

She looked at him, suspicious, like it'd been too easy. "Really?" _Really?_

He nodded, easing further into the booth, one arm stretched out across the back of it, one resting on the table near his drink, staring at her expectantly.

"Okay," she started, trying to gage the wariness in his eyes. "First question. What are your parents' names?"

Sam kept his face relaxed but stared briefly away from her, across the room. He closed his hand around his beer and looked back. "John and Mary."

Jess narrowed her gaze.

"What?"

"That's very nice. Those are lovely names… and very generic. Wonderful."

Sam rolled his eyes, the color in them shining suddenly brighter, stark over his sharp cheekbones. It stole her breath for a moment, a zip running up her spine just like the first time she'd met him.

"I'm not lying," he said earnestly. "I promise."

She stared and considered. "Okay," she agreed, sitting straighter. "John and Mary." She was more nervous about the next one. "Question number two. _Where_ are your parents?"

Sam looked down. He pulled his beer slightly towards himself. When he tipped his head up his face was masked, closed over with forced easiness. "I don't know."

A vague non-answer. She wondered if she could scowl again, and glare, or if that would be pushing him too far. Turns out she didn't have to.

"My dad, anyway," Sam clarified. "I'm not sure where he is. But my mom is… my mom is dead." He closed his mouth. His lips stretched a little, the corners tipping up, like he was trying to make the statement casual and unimportant. It made him look like he was going to break. It made Jess want to touch him. Smooth her fingers over his head. She closed her hands, and kept herself still.

There was an abyss under his admission, like his mother had just died yesterday, and he still hadn't gotten used to the shock of saying it aloud. It wasn't the statement of someone who'd grieved, and made peace. It felt fresh, and deep, and a little scary.

Jess wanted to ask _how_ and _when_, but she bit her lips together. Sam's mother was named Mary, and Mary was dead. She had her answer and didn't want to be seen as pushing for more. She didn't want to take too much, too soon. She wanted to be as respectful of him as he'd always been of her. Solid. Slow and patient. The way he always was when she got upset, or frustrated, or lonely for her family. A gentleman who cheered her up and was always willing to laugh at her when she swore. He deserved as much from her. She could give him the same considerations.

"It was a long time ago," he said next, shrugging dismissively.

But it didn't seem like a long time ago.

She swallowed carefully.

"So, uh…" Sam forced a cough.

"Third question," she cut in.

He blinked, and nodded, looking out at the crowd. She almost dropped it, told him to forget it. It was just a game, a way to get him to tell her something _more_, because in the last two months, she felt like she'd talked incessantly about her family, her childhood, her life. It made her feel… selfish, not knowing more about him.

But maybe this was selfish too.

She considered the next question carefully. She considered, and risked. "Were your parents in love?"

Sam stilled.

Abruptly, he laughed. A loud huff that surprised her. Delightful and pure. She met his eyes and he held the gaze. "Yes," he said. "Yes." Like this answer, at least, had been easy.

She believed him.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, then sat back, surprised by her own words. Surprised the _sorry_ had come out there, instead of on the earlier question, where it probably should have. She looked down. "I'm sorry, I mean… just that…" _that he loved her and had to lose her._

Sam opened his mouth, then stopped, nodding like he understood. "Fourth question?" he prompted. He seemed more curious now, than closed.

Jess checked his eyes and relaxed slightly. She was thinking maybe she'd actually seen the worst of what he'd been holding onto. That he'd avoided talking about his family to avoid that sharp wedge of unresolved grief about his mother. And she wasn't going to push that any further. Not now. She didn't need to know the details. For now, it was enough.

She let her expression lighten with her next question, a question as basic as anything she could ask. "Brothers and sisters?"

Lighting fast, his face closed again.

A flash.

A stutter.

Covered. Controlled. No flinch on the surface, but his eyes darkened like he was in pain. Every easy line through his body suddenly sharp and forced.

Jess swallowed, spine stiffening involuntarily. "Sam—"

"Brother," he answered. "I have a brother." His knuckles turned white around his beer glass.

She opened her mouth, but no words emerged. The next question hovered unspoken, the sound of it locked in her throat.

"Dean," Sam said next, looking right into her eyes, then rolling his shoulders. "His name's Dean." He lifted his glass and drained the rest of his beer.

Her mouth closed.

He set the glass back, glanced at her, then away. He shifted out of the booth and stood, gesturing at the bar, or the bathrooms, she wasn't sure. "I'm gonna, I gotta…"

She nodded her head, not making him finish.

He turned, and stepped, and walked. She watched his back all the way to the bar, watched him until a group stumbled through her line of sight, and made him disappear. When they moved, she couldn't see him anymore. She stood up, looking around. Spotting her friends near the pool tables, she walked over, catching Charlie's sleeve. "Charlie, did you see Sam?"

He blinked at her and stopped chalking his pool cue. "He said he had a headache." He gestured at the door. "I thought he told you."

_Sam_, she thought. She turned to face the exit, watched it swinging shut, and felt a sorrow in her stomach.

He was gone.

* * *

End

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